What Venus de Milo Taught Me About ‘Broken’ Bodies
This isn’t an art history essay. It’s a love letter. It’s a reclamation.
Wyatt traced my collarbone and said, “You’re my Venus de Milo.”
I laughed. “You’re MY Venus de Milo – but also check out these arms!”
“No,” he said, more firmly. “My baby is a masterpiece.”
Turns out, he wasn’t being poetic, though I’d spent years trying to understand my reflection, which never seemed to stay still long enough to greet me. Wyatt was right.
The Armless Elephant in the Louvre
We’ve been told Venus is “incomplete.” A cautionary tale about beauty interrupted.
But stare long enough, and the narrative cracks:
→ Her power isn’t despite the missing arms.
→ It’s because they’re gone.
No limbs to perform emotional labor. No hands to comply. Just pure, uncompromising presence.
Liberation looks like letting go of what the system demands you carry.
Disability Justice, Stone-Cold
Venus isn’t broken. She’s adapted. Curators call it “fragmentation.” I call it efficient design. Many healthcare professionals see “lack” as inherent in disability. It can be easily seen as strategic subtraction with more curiosity.
Wyatt’s gaze just named what the medicalized model gaslights:
“Your body is masterpiece – people have lacked vision.”
You don’t have to believe you’re a masterpiece.
It’s still true that the medical gaze’s inability to see you clearly is its own failure.
Why Curators (and Clinicians) Fear the Gap
Calling Venus “broken” is easier than admitting: wholeness doesn’t require all original parts, and wholeness can evolve.
Systems built on compliance pathologize what they cannot commodify or control. This isn’t toxic positivity; there are days when I wish shoulder subluxations were not normalized for me. It’s not internalized ableism – it’s clarity. I’m disabled in a world that treats my body as an inconvenience. That makes it hard to be understood.
My acknowledging pain does not mean I wish my body were different. It just means I wish people were more patient, it was easier to accommodate myself, and that people did not perceive me as defective. Systemic violence is not something I will claim as my own.
Small Ritual for the “Fragmented”
- Touch a part someone has called “deficit.”
(That scar. That joint that subluxes.) - Say:
“You outlived this battle – and this war.”
—
Time took her arms.
It left her power.
Classic oversight.
Back to Top of Page | Back to Creative Nonfiction | Back to Volume 19, Issue 2 – Winter 2025-2026
About the Author
Libby Banks is a therapist and writer in New Mexico. Her work explores neurodivergence, legibility, and the ethics of knowing. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, Mad in America, Heavy Feather Review, Disappointed Housewife, and elsewhere.